Hershey battles in court over competing hot chocolate iPhone app

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Hershey says it should be entitled to make virtual chocolate milk.

How now?

The Pennsylvania chocolate maker has filed a complaint asking a federal judge to decide whether an iPhone application it created violates a copyright held by Las Vegas-based software developer Hottrix LLC.

The two companies are battling over respective iPhone apps that both involve making virtual chocolate milk. A Hottrix lawyer said the company expects soon to answer Hershey’s complaint along with counterclaims.

Hottrix lawyer Jason H. Fisher said Monday that Hottrix’s app came first and includes plain milk and strawberry milk. It charges $3 for it, while Hershey’s is free. Fisher said Hottrix previously settled a similar dispute with Coors over a beer-related app on confidential terms. He said the iMilk app was worth millions of dollars.

Hershey’s legal filing says the app it launched in October is much different, including its use of a red and white straw to “drain” milk from the phone screen.

“Unlike the Hottrix application, the Hershey’s Chocolate Milk iPhone application ’milk’ cannot be ’drunk’ from the iPhone by tipping the phone (which is the only mechanism for drinking the milk in the Hottrix application), but can only be ’drunk’ by use of the virtual straw,” according to the lawsuit, filed June 2 in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg.